


There's No Place

by Devils_Little_Angel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Animal Traits, Based on a Tumblr Post, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, just written with those ships in mind, this is really platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devils_Little_Angel/pseuds/Devils_Little_Angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home<br/>[hohm] </p><p>noun</p><p>1. a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.</p><p>2. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Place

**Author's Note:**

> I spent maybe a week on this? A bit more? It's the longest sfw one shot I've ever written. But that's just because I'm a sinful person.  
> It's based off of THIS post.  
> seeyoubisinspace.tumblr.com/post/147162463885/ryuusher-hi-i-wrote-a-really-gay-headcanon
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Lance slowly walked into the control room, his stance casual with one hand in his pocket and the other picking in his ear as he slouched along. He lifted his head with a smile when he saw the super pretty alien princess he got to call friend.

“Hey, Allura?”

The aforementioned princess turned around at the sound of her name being called, a jovial smile on her face. As often as Lance would annoy her with his flirtatious manner, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a great person and friend, and really did enjoy spending time with him. She would do everything she could to help him with his problems.

“Yes, Lance? Is there something I could be of assistance with?”

“Actually, I think there is.” Allura, almost impossibly, seemed to light up even more at this, always so eager to help. With a sigh, Lance relaxed, feeling the pleasant warmth of a blush on his cheeks. Kicking at imaginary dirt, honestly the place was _impeccable_ he just couldn’t figure out how Coran managed to do it, Lance shuffled his feet. “Well, I figured since this is your castle and these are your lions really, you’d be able to tell me a little bit more?...”

“Ah- of course!” If Allura had been thrown by the sudden inquisitiveness, from _Lance_ no less, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she made her way over to a table a little further back in the control room, taking a seat on it and gesturing for Lance to join her, before continuing. “I am not quite sure of how it is on Earth, but in Altea the lion is a symbol of strength and mental prowess. There is no greater honor than to be marked with the symbol of the lion. It was a sign of greatness.”

Lance gave a small half-smile. “Thanks, Princess, but that wasn’t quite what I meant… I was actually asking more about the animal itself.”

“Oh!” Blinking her large doe like eyes, Allura gave him an almost confused look. He couldn’t help but notice how adorable it was. “But, I would have thought you would have been taught that already on your planet? Were lions not abundant there?”

Ruffling his hair a bit, Lance chuckled, using his other hand to support him as he casually leaned back. “I guess, they did teach us when we were younger, but it was really only the basics. And who needs to know about dumb Earth animals when you’re busy out _in space_ being the greatest fighter pilot the world ever did see!”

“I see.” Allura smiled indulgently as Lance puffed out his chest with plenty of bravado. “In that case, I will share with you what I know! The lion was the greatest of all hunters, unbelievably fast, and especially good at stealth. Its roar could be heard across many Earth miles. Their best skill though, was their teamwork. They would form groups with advanced social hierarchies called Skaxis. Thanks to their heightened sense of smell, their superior eyesight, and elevated hearing, they could stalk down prey for days, before rushing in and using all of that glorious strength to pervade in their victory!”

“Earth lions were a lot like that too, at least from what I remember.”

Lance couldn’t keep the grin off of his face; Allura’s composure had slipped a bit by the end in her excitement, and she was smiling at him as she kicked her legs back and forth. He could feel the uncomfortable twinge in his chest easing, as his suspicions were practically confirmed.  His grin fell slightly.

“So… hypothetically if we were to suddenly start experiencing some of those traits… like the hearing, and eyesight… and smell?”

Allura had gone quiet at his somber tone, but quickly brightened up again as she completely saw through his honestly, awful attempt at subterfuge.  She clapped her hands together, positively beaming at him.

“Why, it means that you’ve bonded with your lion on an even deeper level! This is just wonderful! I hope that the others will progress as much as you have soon. To have come so far so quickly, you’re amazing, Lance!” Preening under the attention, Lance rubbed underneath his nose to hide his blush. “Will you go check on the others? See if they’re… on your level? I have to stay and land the castle. We’ve finally reached that new planet.” She smiled fondly, giving a silent sigh at how easy he was to please when he immediately hopped up, offering a salute.  And as he ran off, excited to get some, to a degree, fresh air, all she could think of was how sweet he really was. 

* * *

 

Lance clutched at the wall as he slammed into it, thrown to the side when the castle began to shake. When it was finally still again, he let go, unable to keep the smile off of his face, laughing as he thought about how Hunk must’ve been dealing with it. The guy really hated landing and taking off. Lance hoped that any puking he did was done outside.

Starting back up on a light jog toward the front entrance, Lance sent off his mental condolences to Hunk’s plight, happy he didn’t suffer the same weak stomach.  He shifted from foot to foot, too impatient to wait for the door to depressurize and unlock. When it finally opened, he immediately rushed outside, getting hit by a wave of heat.

The air was heavy, and overall it was hotter than Lance personally would have liked it, but that was to be expected, what with the planet having two suns. Thankfully they weren’t that close. 

Looking around for something to do, Lance shrugged and continued to walk, figuring he’d just explore until he found something that would suit his fancy.  It wasn’t like he had anything he was supposed to do right then.

* * *

 

Keith was annoyed. He was beyond annoyed. The princess and Coran had called the paladins in for a meeting, but when they all had arrived Lance was nowhere to be found. Keith had wanted to just go on without him but Allura had insisted on having him there.

That had been ten minutes ago.

Keith had had enough.

Finally, he politely excused himself, explaining that he would go get Lance himself. Thankfully, Allura agreed with this plan and no one questioned him.  He could hear the quiet murmurs of casual conversation spark up behind him as he walked down the hall.

Twenty minutes later and Keith was ready to pull his hair out. He was getting nowhere. He had already searched all the areas Lance frequented, and there was nothing. He’d even checked the _training room!_ With a growl, he pulled up to a stop in front of the front door. If Lance had already wandered outside, Keith swore on his bayard, he would _kill_ him.

He stepped out of the palace, looking around at the rocky savanna-like terrain. There was alien plant-life growing in various places, but none of it he could recognize from his lessons. He’d been learning more about various habitable planets and planets out of Galra’s reach. He’d grown tired of not knowing anything about any of the places and races they’d encountered, and set out to fix that.

Keith gave the planet another look over. To find Lance, he’d have to follow him, and to follow him, he’d have to retrace Lance’s steps, and to do _that_ he’d have to… think like Lance. Keith couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through him. Okay, so… Lance probably wouldn’t think to walk all the way around the ship just to go that way. And he probably wouldn’t have a specific preference over which direction to go. In fact, his most likely path would just be… Forward.

After another short while of walking, Keith came to a halt. This was honestly taking too long, and the chances of not finding Lance were high. Gnawing at the inside of his cheek, Keith looked back at the castle. Lance wouldn’t go out of sight of it, would he? But then again, he could be pretty flighty, and might not have actually paid attention to how far he was walking until it was too late. This would be way easier with Red, he’d be able to cover more ground and run scanners at the same time, but he really did _not_ want to go back empty handed. 

He turned back around and sighed, dropping his head forward and shutting his eyes. Maybe the lions could help? They’d helped with things like this every time before. He tried reaching out to Red, with his mind? Or was it spiritually? He couldn’t quite explain it. It was just a connection between them.

He smiled as his mind was filled with the not-growl of his lion. It was more of a purr, but there was a rough note underneath. It was always something he had to get used to, because there was never the rumbling of sound that people usually associated with a growl or purr, and the complete silence of it always left him a little off put at first.

The connection felt a bit strained, he’d never tried this from so far away, but Keith was just glad he was able to do it at all. Finally, he tried to ask Red for help.

_Hey. Can you show me where Lance is? Or how to get to him, at least?_

After a few minutes of silence, Keith huffed. Either his temperamental lion was ignoring him, _again._ Or he was just too far away, and Red couldn’t hear him. He would’ve bet it was the first one though. He wouldn’t be ignored damn it. Feeling inspired once more, Keith pushed even deeper, hunting for that deeper connection.

_Hey! I know you can hear me. Help me out here._

_Please._

Keith gasped, taking a staggering step forward, as his mind was suddenly assaulted with four other presences.  The first that inevitably caught his attention though was the practically overwhelming, excited, playful essence that could only be described as _Blue._ After that, he noticed the grounding, calmness of Yellow, and the fearlessly inquisitive nature of Green. And there to guide them all, Black.

Talk about a lot to take in.

A wave of nausea passed through him, making him dizzy, and Keith gripped his head. The overlapping of five _very different_ personalities was jarring. And it didn’t help at all that he seemed to drop in on the middle of an argument. One that seemed to be about… him and Red? Thankfully, it was an argument Black quickly shut down.

Keith really hoped this new awakening wasn’t permanent. He was already feeling drained. Yet energized. It was exhausting. He tried focusing on anything _but_ their connection, tried to distance himself from it. There were two he just couldn’t seem to shake off. He couldn’t completely get rid of any of them, but they had all, gratefully, faded into a sort of background buzz he could ignore. All except for Red and Blue.

Blue, who’d been almost anxiously vying for his attention, seeming to want to direct it somewhere. Keith belatedly realized that that somewhere was to a much duller blue presence, pulsing with the same energy that could only have been Lance.

With a smirk, Keith sent up his thanks to the two lions, even Red, who still refused to talk to him, before opening his eyes once more, only to have the breath forcibly pushed out of him as his senses were completely overwhelmed.

The already bright planet, now burned, making his eyes tear up as he was blinded. What he thought had been quiet, was actually an entire symphony of soft sounds mixing into an unidentifiable hum of the planets energy itself. His skin felt too tight for his body, the clothes he was wearing too rough for its new sensitivity. He easily caught an airy sort of scent that couldn’t really be described as anything in specific, and could have bet that had he eaten anything his taste buds would have changed as well.

After taking a few minutes to reorient himself, Keith continued on his mission, heading toward the blue pulse that couldn’t have been more than a few kilos away.

* * *

 

Lance let out a slow sigh. He felt more relaxed than he had in months. His eyes had been closed for almost the entirety of him sunbathing on this _really_ nice rock slab he found. Every thought was coming so lethargically, it was nice. He knew there was something he was supposed to be doing, but he really couldn’t remember what that was, and he really couldn’t find the motivation to actually _move._

After a while though, his nose began to twitch as it slowly caught onto the scent of fresh rain, or possibly sea spray. He couldn’t tell what it was for sure. He could tell that it was getting stronger as time went on. Maybe it was about to rain? He didn’t know that it could rain on this planet, since there definitely weren’t any lakes or anything around him when he’d lain down.

It really was bizarre. The scent was accompanied by a sort of pulse, like the push and pull of the tide. It was drawing him in, and getting stronger with each second. Just like the scent itself.

He still couldn’t bring himself to actually care, and the thoughts slipped from his mind. Just like everything else had for the past –how long had it been? Oh well.

Over the next few ticks, or maybe it was a minute? Figuring out how time worked in space was really hard. The point was that as time passed, three things happened basically simultaneously in Lance’s hindered mind.

The first was that he noticed the scent had become overwhelming. Like he was drowning. Or back at home on the beach.  It was nice.

The second was that, it was suddenly a lot cooler on his face, and the backs of his eyelids weren’t burning red/yellow/white all at once with the suns’ light. He was in a shadow?

The third he was only able to process after carefully filing the two other facts into the neat compartments of his messy mind. There was a sound, his name. Someone was saying his name. Lance really hoped that it wasn’t an enemy. Allura would kill him if she found out how easily he was caught off guard. Keith would never let him live it down. Wait. Enemies don’t know his name. Enemies don’t care about his name.

His eyes slowly pried themselves open, still fighting the lethargy the day had instilled into him. He normally didn’t get like this, and even though it was enjoyable, he really hoped he wouldn’t always be like this now. Magical space cat powers were certainly strange.

It took what was definitely a tick, it was too long to be a second, for his eyes to adjust to the blinding halo surrounding the person leaning over him and actually be able to see who it was.

Keith glared back down at him.

“You’ve been missing for hours now. Do you know how annoying that is?”

Lance just smiled, “Aww, Keith. You missed me!”

“No! Didn’t you hear me? Have you gone deaf? I said it was _annoying._ ”

Lance had sat up to say something witty and banter back, but he was quickly sidetracked by a pretty important realization. Leaning ever farther forward, he inhaled deeply, pleased to find that Keith was in fact the source of that nice smell and not wanting to think too heavily on what it meant that he enjoyed the way _Keith_ smelled. This cat magic was really getting to him.

Keith froze, completely taken aback. He was used to Lance’s scent, had been following it ever since he fell in range, but with Lance suddenly this close to him? It was as though someone took a handful of cinnamon and basil and just threw it in his face. He could feel his eyes watering when he noticed.

“Are you... _purring_?”

Lance didn’t answer and Keith grunted in surprise as he was dragged down to join the other paladin on his perch. There was not a single way in which that could have gone well, but Keith supposed that the way they’d tangled up wasn’t _all_ bad. Although he would absolutely be chewing Lance out later; his knees were definitely scraped and his elbow bruised. Plus his chin had smashed into Lance’s collar bone. Overall, he was not happy about that.

It could have been worse though, and Lance didn’t seem to mind any of the bruises. In fact, he seemed _more_ content than he had been before, if that was even possible. Keith had to admit, only to himself, that Lance did smell nice.  The other boy had rolled over and was mostly on top of him, but with his face into the worn softness of Lance’s t-shirt, listening to the strong beat of his heart, the heat of the planet pressing down on them on all sides… Keith was comfortable.

He could feel himself getting sleepy, as he realized that at some point Lance’s fingers had snuck their way into his hair, and we’re twirling the strands. Those hands slowly slipped deeper, gently scratching his scalp and carding through his hair, but Keith couldn’t bring himself to mind as he took another deep inhale. Lance smelled _really_ nice.

He didn’t know how long they’d just lain there, pressed together, breathing each other in, but eventually Shiro did come to collect the two of them. As they all walked back, Keith honestly felt a bit drunk, limbs heavy and feeling sluggish, in an almost pleasant way.  From the look of it, Lance was the same.

Eventually though, after enough complaining and begging, Shiro picked Lance up, carrying him on his back. Lance had his face pressed against their leader’s collar, letting out a pleased hum and more of that strange purring sound. He spoke, his words muffled into Shiro’s skin.

“You smell nice… like fresh cut grass.”

Keith hadn’t noticed how he’d been drifting closer until he was practically plastered to the black paladin’s side. Shiro didn’t call him out on it though, just gave him an amused look before wrapping an arm around Keith’s waist, using the other to keep Lance from slipping. Especially since Lance didn’t seem too keen on actually holding onto him. 

Lance was right, Shiro did smell like grass, but underneath that Keith could faintly smell something else too, something he couldn’t describe. The fact that it couldn’t be named was probably why Lance hadn’t mentioned it, but it was still nice.

Along the way, Shiro explained how Allura’s patience had finally worn thin in light of their prolonged absence and explained the purpose of the meeting, and the occurrence Lance talked to her about that morning. He continued explaining that he had reached that level of connection not too long ago, and proceeded to guide Pidge and Hunk through the same process, so they could all be on the same page. He would have shown Keith too, but he’d still been out “looking for Lance”. It was because they had still yet to return that Allura had sent him after them. This planet had a much longer day cycle and the boys had been out for hours. At least Keith had managed to figure it out on his own. At this, Shiro shot him a proud smile. Keith felt that warmth in him from earlier grow a bit.

* * *

 

After they returned to the castle, Allura had scolded them for their forgetfulness, really Coran did most of the scolding though, before her anger was seemingly forgotten in the sight of Keith and Lance’s new bond. It was also kind of pointless to try and yell at them when they were like that.

She finally dismissed them, and from his position on Shiro’s back Lance lifted his head, calling out excitedly in that way that people did when they were sleepy and delirious, demanding that it was time for a “Voltron Cuddle Puddle”. Keith wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that, but he could guess. Hunk and Shiro laughed at the notion, while Pidge had a slightly disgruntled look. Allura couldn’t be happier with the concept, believing it would be good bonding for the team. Keith didn’t know who to agree with.

Eventually though, they all ended up in a pile on the couch, limbs tangled together in a mess. Lance was over the moon ecstatic. Surrounded by the warmth of four other people, pressed tight together against all their bodies, Lance was reminded of movie nights with a family he left behind. It hurt to think about, but with the scent of burning ozone, like science experiments gone wrong, and burning wood like Mama’s fireplace mixing in with smells that already seemed familiar swirling pleasantly in his brain, he realized that he’d gained a new family. The dynamics were a little weird and almost uncomfortable to think about, but it was still _good_.

Lying on the couch, right then in that moment, felt like home.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. 
> 
> If any of you have read my other fics, I know and I'm sorry. I've hit a major block with 35 Days, I WILL stay with it. But I figured in order to keep my promise to myself, I'd work on some other things in the meantime. I have about 5 other fics in the works. Some Voltron, Some Batman, that will hopefully come out soon. Please be patient with me.
> 
> And if you haven't read my other fics! Then please ignore that! OR... go read them? If you liked this, I hope you'd like those.
> 
> Anyway, Hope you liked it, And comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated! Thanks!


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